Social Stratification and Movement Trajectory in the Kudankulam Anti-nuclear Movement

This article generates a framework for understanding the impact of socio-economic stratification within a social movement on the movement’s trajectory. Based on existing literature (particularly Varigonda, 2020), it hypothesizes that socio-economic stratification impacts a movement’s trajectory by influencing the politicization of state policy, the strength of a movement’s action repertoires and the openness of state input structures. This is then applied to a historical–comparative study of the anti-nuclear movement in Kudankulam, which was stratified into caste Hindu farmers and Christian fisherfolk. Through a comparison of three distinctive iterations of the movement—in the late 1980s, the mid-2000s and 2011–2012—the article generates a novel framework for analysing the impact of intra-movement stratification on its trajectory, proposing that politicization of state policy leads to inclusive mobilization when stratified communities perceive a significant adverse impact from the policy, and limited mobilization when they do not; that a movement’s action repertoires are strengthened when stratified communities perceive significant roles within the movement, and are weakened when they do not; and that state input structures are further opened for privileged communities while being closed for marginalized communities within a stratified movement.